Read the full Birmingham Economic Review 2024.
Birmingham is a city on the rise, with unprecedented investment, growing infrastructure, and a youthful talent pool, but to fully realize its potential, it must bridge the skills gap and empower its workforce to seize future opportunities.
Often referred to as the UK’s second city, Birmingham is so much more than just that. It’s a city on the cusp of a huge amount of opportunity.
Rates of investment into the city are at unprecedented levels and the latest EY UK Attractiveness Survey reported that, in 2023, the wider West Midlands region enjoyed foreign direct investment 72% higher than it was in 2022. You just need to look around to witness this in action: there’s lots of construction under way and plenty of new buildings springing up all the time. Barely a week goes by without reports of a new skyscraper being given the green light.
HS2 will further boost this. Faster connections to the capital will enable the city to really punch above its weight, not only nationally, but internationally too.
However, to succeed the city needs to shift from its inherent self-deprecating manner. It needs to push forward and embrace both the opportunities and challenges ahead.
Birmingham is one of the youngest cities in the UK. This provides a plethora of young talent from which we should be seeking to nurture not only our future workforce, but our future entrepreneurs too. At the same time, however, Birmingham also has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment.
Whilst challenging, these factors combine to provide Birmingham with a significant pool of potential talent to nurture and work with so that both current and future skills needs are addressed.
Alongside this opportunity, however, is the reality.
As the Local Skills Investment Plan outlined, over 75% of regional SME businesses either hadn’t already, or didn’t have the intention to engage with the FE or training sectors in order to strengthen their own workforces. For those in the FE sector this is hugely frustrating as it means we’re severely hindered in our mission to meet the productivity and skills gaps that so many SMEs face.
We continue to hear about the ‘skills gap’ and ‘skills shortages’ but without being able to convince those SMEs that we want to make their business, our business, we risk being curtailed in this mission.
The dialogue that we foster between the FE sector and SMEs needs to be timely if it is to have a meaningful impact. Being told a business requires x number of skilled tradespeople tomorrow doesn’t work; being involved in an ongoing conversation that forecasts that need in advance, can and does work!
Historically, some of the challenge has been that FE is viewed as simply ‘too big’ or ‘too complex’ for owner-managed SMEs who are focused on the day to day running of their businesses. The challenge has always been to convey to those businesses that we’re here to help, we’re not trying to sell a solution regardless of its suitability, we want to help navigate through what’s right for each individual employer.
There’s still a long way to go in this respect, but already the establishment of ‘Skills West Midlands and Warwickshire’ has provided regional businesses with a single point of access through which they can receive the support and guidance to not only meet their current skills needs, but importantly start to recognise how to future proof that workforce to meet the challenges ahead.
At South and City College Birmingham (SCCB) we’ve been working hard over the last year to ensure that both our industry facilities and curriculum provision have been updated so that employers can access the skills and qualifications that will position them to take advantage of opportunities that are coming their way.
A perfect example of this has been our recognition of Birmingham City Council’s ambitious plans to retrofit 300 homes by 2030 as part of its carbon neutral pledge.
We want to empower SME construction companies to be able to deliver these projects, but they’ll only be able to with the appropriate skills in place. To meet this need, SCCB has built two houses intended as dynamic teaching spaces that provide first-hand exposure to environmental upgrades and energy-efficient retrofitting and allow students to immerse themselves in the practicalities of creating future-ready, eco-conscious living spaces.
Simply we’re providing employers now with the opportunity to upskill their workforces so that they can embrace the opportunities ahead. In doing so, they’ll not only be well positioned for those specific opportunities, but they’ll also be also grow and flourish which will provide more young people with the opportunity to get trained and succeed in the years ahead.
This blog was written by Rebecca Waterfield, Head of Employer Engagement, South and City College.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this analysis post are those of the authors and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham.